Video Shows Federal Officials Knew Quickly of Potential for Massive Oil Flow in Gulf Spill

AL.com / Birmingham Press-Register ^ | 5/1/2010 - Yes, MAY 1st | Ben Raines

[penelopesire]

high crimes and misdemeanors and dereliction of duty!

[McGruff]

[fight_truth_decay]

Trivia: American consumers and small businesses spill more than 9 million gallons of gasoline each year. That's the equivalent of an oil supertanker

[Uncle Chip]

Thanks — bookmarked.

[tutstar]

bump

[unspun]

Yes, thank you. See also, from Unified Command spokesperson:

http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2010/06/video-shows-us-government-well-aware-in.html

[a fool in paradise]

[Danae]

Folks, what has slowed up the process for RECOVERY, is that this disaster was not PLANNED for. When you plan for such things, you identify obstacles. In this case, the obstacles had to be overcome one by one, instead of being seamless because of pre-planning.

Local responders knew what they needed to do, but just after the spill, BP initiated ITS own emergency plane, which I am certain it HAS. This is SOP!!!!! It is what SHOULD happen. What happened NEXT was a Cluster F*** of people, all with Jurisdiction seeing who could pee farther. This is what PRE-PLANNING for emergency management is FOR. It ELIMINATES the pissing contest over jurisdiction, and makes the process a managed one.

Here is where the Obama administration fell down yet again.

THEY PROVIDED NO EMERGENCY MANAGER WITH COMMAND AUTHORITY.

That is ESSENTIAL in situations like this, and they did NOTHING. So the pissing contest continued, and got worse as more and more feds, locals and military (Coast Guard) got involved, and progress of ANY sort ground to a halt.

THAT is what broke down here. Mark my words.

[fight_truth_decay]

Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (S.395)

In 1995, both houses of Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (S.395), which granted a royalty "holiday" to oil and gas companies drilling in government-owned deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico for leases sold between 1996 and 2000.

Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (S. 3711/H.R. 6111)

In 2006, Congress passed and the President signed the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), coauthored the plan to open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico and share 37.5 percent of the new royalty revenues, dedicated to coastal protection, with Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. An additional 12.5 percent will be dedicated to the state side of the Land and Conservation Fund, which funds the acquisition of parks and green spaces across the country.[8] An industry-led coalition called the Consumer Alliance for Energy Security applauded passage of the bill and claimed that they “played a prominent role” in winning its passage.

Allegations of fraudulent underpayment of royalties by oil and gas companies

POGO [government respecting unionization should be neutral] and whistleblowers file suit against oil companies in mid-nineties During the mid-nineties, whistleblowers and the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a government watchdog group, filed suit against sixteen oil companies for failing to pay their required royalties. POGO’s suit was filed under the False Claims Act (FCA), which provides citizens the power to sue on behalf of the federal government for fraud.

Clinton Interior Dept. error leads to lost revenue for federal government; Bush admin. takes years to fix

In 1998 and 1999, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) under President Clinton issued over 1,000 leases to oil and gas companies which omitted the clause forcing companies to pay royalties if oil prices rose above $34 a barrel and natural gas rose above $4 per thousand cubic feet.[46] The New York Times exposed the problem in a February 14, 2006 article.[47] The Bush administration learned of the mistake, but initially opted not to address it. Interior Secretary Norton stated, “These are binding contracts that the government signed with companies...I don’t think we can change them just because we don’t like them.”[48][49][50]

Royalty-in-Kind (instead of cash payment fill federal reserves) program expands under Bush

Under the Bush administration, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) dramatically expanded its program to take oil and gas royalties-in-kind (RIK), meaning the industry gives the government a portion of the oil and gas it takes from federal lands rather than paying royalties in cash. Much of the oil taken under this program has been used to fill the federal government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A series of pilot programs in the 1990’s were the precursor to this expansion. These pilot programs almost consistently lost money for the government

Bush administration relaxed royalty requirements

In 2004, after oil and gas prices had risen substantially over the previous several years, Interior Secretary Gale Norton offered royalty incentives to shallow-water producers

110th Congress After Democrats took control of Congress following the 2006 congressional elections, the House passed the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007, 264-163.

Ben Lieberman of the Heritage Foundation argued: "Tax hikes on domestic energy also undercut the energy security rationale for the bill. He also described how a requirement to switch over to "politically correct alternative energy sources" would become a burden, as these sources require federal funding to be competitive. He wrote, "Of course, the only reason why a federally mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard is needed in the first place is that that these alternatives are far too expensive to compete otherwise. In effect, Washington is forcing costlier energy options on the public."

All comes down to Money & Government Imposed Restrictions..Tax Them Til They Have To Fail or "Never waste a 'good' crisis"

[FDNYRHEROES]

Trivia: American consumers and small businesses spill more than 9 million gallons of gasoline each year. That's the equivalent of an oil supertanker

But Oil Supertankers don't haul gasoline....They only haul Crude Oil as a general rule...

[TheThinker]

Then I guess Watergate was no big deal vis-a-vis Nixon.

[TheThinker]

Interesting that this video was able to make it out of the facility.

I guess not everybody in the government isn't a coward or a traitor.

[TheThinker]

I'll say! I wonder if anyone in that room will pull the trigger in getting this out to the MSM.

FoxNews knows about it.

Will they be Obama's lapdog on this issue?

[TheRobb7]

OBAMA LIED. THE GULF DIED.

[unspun]

Article “final” is going out to numerous venues.

http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2010/06/video-shows-us-government-well-aware-in.html

[Danae]

THey are good people trying to do their jobs, but with no clear cut line of command they are screwed. This is STRAIGHT out of my text book:

“2.2.6 Link Emergency Response to Disaster Recovery and Hazard Mitigation
No clear line separates emergency response and disaster recovery. Some portions of the community will be engaged in emergency response tasks while others conduct recovery tasks. Response planning should be linked to recovery planning, which will speed the process of disaster recovery. It will also ease the integration of hazard mitigation into disaster recovery (Wu and Lindell, 2004). The necessary coordination can be achieved through organizational contacts between officials and personnel responsible for these activities.”
(Perry, Ronald W.. Emergency Planning. John Wiley & Sons, 102006. 56).

[combat_boots]

Which actually means this was the plan all along. The SWAT teams were sent to destroy the evidence & whisk whoever they needed to whisk away off the rigs.

The rig was blown to destroy anything else.

There is only one conclusion: this was a domestic, coordinated, long-planned terrorist attack.

[Boucheau]

I don’t know if I would call it a “terrorist attack” but it is certainly a means to an end.

Of course they rejected the initial recommendations of engineers, of course they rejected help from other nations and companies, and of course they delayed—they needed it to reach shore.

All they need is a tiny bit of doubt in the people, a tiny bit of guilt to forestall resistance to their carbon tax.

They are masters at using our own ethics (guilt) against us. I don’t find it difficult to defend drilling for oil, but many marshmallow sellouts on the right seem to struggle with it now that the “accidental” spill has occurred.

They will use this to their benefit.

It was a 39% premium increase from Blue Cross to usher in socialized medicine and it is oil spill to usher in a carbon tax.

[Brad from Tennessee]

From Steve McIntyre at CLIMATE AUDIT on June 2:

“Did any of you know that the US supposedly has a National Contingency Plan for dealing with very large oil spills? And that EPA has legal responsibility for maintaining readiness for such an eventuality? Who knew? I’ve watched hours of coverage and this hasn’t been mentioned anywhere.”

http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/02/epa-and-the-national-contingency-plan/